What Jesus really said
Noël Staples reviews an imaginative response to the teachings of Christ
In his new book The Upside-Down Bible: What Jesus really said about money, sex and violence, Symon Hill admits that he and, indeed, all of us are biased! His perspective is that of an associate of the socialist Christian thinktank Ekklesia, a broadcaster, journalist (formerly with the Friend), Christian activist and theologian. He writes mostly on peace matters, disarmament, sexuality and the role of religion in society. As a contemplative Quaker, not a Christian (I identify strongly with Christian ethics), I wondered, before reading Symon Hill’s book, why anyone would want to make the intellectual effort to understand, or even know, what Jesus said or meant.
Written in an easy and accessible style, the book begins with a twenty-page introduction to the problems encountered in studying the New Testament to discover Jesus’s teachings. It tells how we know almost nothing of his life and how his teachings come from Aramaic oral history and were translated into a different language (Greek) twenty and more years after his death. These were later translated again into many English versions. We learn that Jesus’s country was brutally ruled by the Romans, who ceded authority to Jewish religious leaders – provided they toed the Roman line! Fearing Jesus might inflame rebellion, they conspired with governor Pontius Pilate and had him crucified – then a frequent and horribly slow way of killing people. Symon Hill tells us ‘Jesus has been a profound embarrassment to Christianity’ and that Christians today find the teachings of Jesus challenging and awkward.
The Christian church, which informs the writer’s views, arose among those whom Jesus’s teachings subsequently inspired. By the time of the Council of Nicea in AD325 the church under the first Christian emperor, Constantine, had become a substantial political, perhaps rather than spiritual, organisation. It went on to gain wealth and power, ruling people’s behaviour using a body of doctrines derived from interpreting Greek records of the oral tradition of Jesus’s Aramaic. Symon Hill notes that religion and politics were inseparable in Jesus’s time. I would add that it is only relatively recently that governments (that is secular politics) have begun to separate from religion – currently a bloody business indeed in Islam, as the self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi fights to assert a new caliphate to rule Muslims, violently resisting such separation.
Symon Hill examines fifteen New Testament stories well known to Bible readers. These include the Talents, the Two Sons and the Good Samaritan. Using mainly New Jerusalem Bible translations, he discussed them with diverse groups of people, Christians and others unfamiliar with the Bible. This makes for some very interesting reflections on possible meanings, translations and their relevance to the present time.
The book is stimulating and well worth reading. However, reading and interpreting is an exercise of the intellect. It may be that intellect alone cannot comprehend the spirit. Ultimately, we must peer over the edge of the intellectual cliff and decide whether to leap, trusting the spirit to uphold us!
Christianity, like other religions, had an immense impact on humanity. Understanding the past is important for planning our future, so trying to know about Jesus is worthwhile. Jesus probably did teach (following Moses) that loving first God, then ourselves and each other gives rise to all other laws and is the best way for all to cohabit peacefully. While Quakers try to discern in silent contemplation how the spirit Jesus knew might guide us today, interpreting New Testament stories about Jesus and early Christians can also help us find our way into something of Jesus’s relationship with God; that, in turn, may evoke strong feelings of belonging, of being loved, from which other loving proceeds.
There are probably as many ways to God as people seeking ways. The main thing is to find a way to God. Reading Symon Hill’s book may, indeed, be one of them. Having somehow found a way to God myself, I feel impelled to encourage others to seek their way. The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart said: ‘If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “thank you”, it will be enough.’ A sense of gratitude to God is a good indicator of the presence of God’s grace in one’s life!
The Upside-Down Bible: What Jesus really said about money, sex and violence by Symon Hill is published by Darton, Longman and Todd at £9.99. ISBN: 9780232532074.
